Here's where the ground floor front room is up to, after the first actual day of Spacetherming:

They've approached in a fairly sensible manner: yesterday they set up a cutting area, and did a couple of tests with small pieces, figuring out the fixing and jointing methods. Turns out that it can be drilled OK (we were advised that drill bits would get snarled up), but getting continuity on the outside angles is really tricky; because there's a built-in VCL behind the plasterboard, any discontinuity of this will create more work afterwards, to get the vapour seal.

Another issue that's cropped up is that due to irregularities in the brickwork and the walls and joists not being quite at right angles, they can't slot the Spacetherm down between the frontmost joist and the wall; some PIR will have to be used instead here, which again is a risk area from a VCL-continuity perxpective.

In other news:

• The builders took advantage of the fine weather yesterday to do some snagging on the roof (though still a little more to do there), put the fascia boards on the front
• Today they also did one of the knock-outs for the rear patio doors
• The plumbing is progressing, but very slowly. I had to resort to ripping out some of the pipework that the "plastic plumber" had fitted, because it was unsatisfactory; needless to say that this didn't go down well! I've resorted to installing the rainwater harvesting system myself now - managing someone else into doing quite literally would take longer than doing the job myself - whilst leaving him to do more "normal" plumbing like radiators
• I also had a very positive conversation with a Viesmann installer regarding a replacement for the now effectively abandoned Baxi Ecogen; awaiting costings etc from him in the next couple of days